euRobotics Workshop Sources

There are two ways you can get the sources for the workshop:

  • Using Git
  • Using a zip file

Since the sources are still evolving, it might be necessary to update your version before the workshop.

Hello World application

The first, ROS-independent part, uses the classical hello-world examples from the rtt-exercises package.

You can either check it out with

mkdir ~/ros
cd ~/ros
git clone git://gitorious.org/orocos-toolchain/rtt_examples
cd rtt_examples/rtt-exercises

Or you can download the examples from here. You need at least version 2.3.1 of the exercises.

If you're not using ROS, you can download/unzip it in another directory than ~/ros.

Youbot demo application

The hands-on session involves working on a demo application with a YouBot robot. The application allows you to

  • Drive the YouBot around based on pose estimates using laser scan measurements
  • Simulate the YouBot on your own computer

The Youbot demo application is available on https://github.com/bellenss/euRobotics_orocos_ws (this is still work in progress and will be updated regularly)

You can either check it out with

mkdir ~/ros
export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=\$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH:$HOME/ros
cd ~/ros
git clone http://robotics.ccny.cuny.edu/git/ccny-ros-pkg/scan_tools.git
git clone http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/orocos_bayesian_filtering.git
git clone http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/orocos_kinematics_dynamics.git
git clone git://github.com/bellenss/euRobotics_orocos_ws.git
roscd youbot_supervisor
rosmake --rosdep-install

Check that ~/ros is in your ROS_PACKAGE_PATH environment variable at all times, by also adding the export line above to your .bashrc file.

Testing your setup

Here are some instructions to see if you're running a system usable for the workshop.

Non-ROS users

You have built RTT with the 'autoproj' tool. This tool generated an 'env.sh' file. You need to source that file in each terminal where you want to build or run an Orocos application:

cd orocos-toolchain
source env.sh

Next, cd to the rtt-exercises directory that you unpacked, enter hello-1-task-execution, and type make: 

cd rtt-exercises-2.3.0/hello-1-task-execution
make all
cd build
./HelloWorld-gnulinux

ROS users

You have built RTT from the orocos_toolchain_ros package. Make sure that you source the /opt/ros/diamondback/setup.bash script and that the unpacked exercises are under a directory of the ROS_PACKAGE_PATH:

cd rtt-exercises-2.3.0
source /opt/ros/diamondback/setup.bash
export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=\$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH:\$(pwd)

Next, you proceed with going into an example directory and type make:

cd hello-1-task-execution
make all
./HelloWorld-gnulinux

Testing the YouBot Demo

After you have built the youbot_supervisor, you can test the demo by opening two consoles and do in them:

First console: 

roscd youbot_supervisor
./simulation.sh

Second console: 

roscd youbot_supervisor
./changePathKst (you only have to do this once after installation)
kst plotSimulation.kst

If you do not have 'kst', install it with  sudo apt-get install kst kst-plugins